Echoes by Marissa Lete (best books for students to read txt) 📕

Not only is my car out front, but it’s fixed, too. The mirror is back, and there’s no evidence that it has even made contact with another car.

“I got it… fixed. I wanted to make sure everything was normal, as it was before you started getting chased. I wanted you to have your life back,” Maverick tells me when he sees me eyeing the car suspiciously.

I nod, hitting the unlock button on my keychain. I remember the grinding noise I’d heard when my car scraped against the Suburban. There must have been some serious damage to the exterior, and it probably had needed an entire new paint job. Wasn’t getting a car painted expensive, and didn’t it take a long time? I hadn’t even been gone for a full forty-eight hours yet.

“My number is in your phone now. In case you… need anything,” Maverick tells me sincerely. I can hear what he really means in the space between his words: in case you want to talk.

“What are we going to do about Alice? What if she tries to kidnap me again?” I ask him.

“I’m going to look into it. I’ll figure something out, but for now, just try and stay safe. Don’t go out alone, lock your doors, stuff like that. I don’t think she knows where you live. Call me if you notice anything suspicious—anything at all. Okay?”

I search his hazel eyes for a long moment. “Okay.”

Maverick starts giving me directions on how to get home from here. We’re right at the edge of town, so it’s almost a thirty-minute drive back to my house. But as I stand there, listening, my focus changes to something else.

Maverick’s house. His massive, elegant, very expensive-looking house. I take in the perfectly mowed lines in the front lawn, the spotless windows lining the front. The art and furniture I’d seen throughout the inside, the sport’s car he drove—all of it pointed towards one simple truth: Maverick must be rich. Really rich.

“—I’ll keep you updated if I find anything,” he finishes. My eyes pull into focus and I look at him. He’s wearing an old, gray T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans today. Black sneakers. If he wasn’t standing in front of a mansion, I’d never suspect him to have lots of money.

“Okay,” I reply, though I’m sure I’ve missed some part of the conversation. I take a couple of steps towards my car, then turn, looking at him. “Thanks,” I tell him.

His mouth twists up in a knot. “Drive safe,” he replies.

As I get in my car, and as I pull out of the glorious stone driveway, a thought wanders into my mind. If Maverick can essentially manipulate people’s memories, he can make anyone forget ever meeting him. Or seeing him do something wrong. What kinds of things could he have gotten away with throughout the years?

I see a flash of the speedometer creeping higher as we’d driven away from Alice’s laboratory. If he had gotten pulled over, he could have simply made the cop forget it had ever happened.

To get to the main road, I have to pass through a tall, intricately woven metal gate that swings open when I get close to it. If Maverick has lots of money, how did he get it? He could have easily robbed a bank, or stolen the money from someone and covered up the act by making them forget about it. He could have taken the mansion from someone and left them on the streets, and they’d never have even known they were rich.

I take a deep breath, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel, turning my knuckles white.

What kind of person is Maverick—the kind who’d be honest and true, or the kind who’d use his ability for personal gain?

Chapter 24

Sunday passes by in a haze of spending my time avoiding my parents, moping around in my room, and trying to sort through the endless spiral of thoughts coursing through my mind. On Monday, I stay home from school, certain that sitting in a classroom attempting to focus while I have so many things to process will just make me crazier.

I’m not sure what I want to do about Maverick. Sure enough, when I’d checked my cell phone later on Sunday, his name was lit up across the screen in my list of contacts. I’d started typing, then erased a message to him at least four times since then, unable to figure out the right words.

I feel a strange mix of emotions, some stronger than others at times. I’m afraid: afraid of what Alice is going to do next. She could be hunting me down, trying to take me hostage again. How can I be sure that I’ll ever be safe again? I’m mad, too: mad at Maverick for getting me into this mess—and also for keeping me out of it. If he had just been honest with me, maybe we could have worked something out instead of him erasing himself from my life. Maybe I would remember how I felt about him before all of this, and maybe I’d know what it’s like to be a happy, normal teenager who could actually have a boyfriend.

As Monday creeps into Tuesday, my emotions all end up in the same place: anticipation. What’s going to happen now? How are we going to stop Alice? How are we going to save all of the other anomalies she has locked up in her laboratory? When I’d been locked up there, Alice had injected me with something that had temporarily caused me to hear echoes of the future. What else could she be doing to the other anomalies? We have to find some way to help them.

My head is starting to hurt, even as I walk into Chemistry Tuesday morning and throw my backpack down on the table. The echoes of last